The disciplinary procedure the employer conducts does not have to be perfect, but did the employer react fairly to the employees conduct, is a question that will be asked and assessed in an unfair dismissal case, which includes an assessment of any Disciplinary Procedure implemented. By not conducting a disciplinary procedure, or by not employing a fair disciplinary procedure, a charge may be put to the employer that they contravened an employee’s constitutional right to fair procedures and natural justice.

If an employee is dismissed after a disciplinary procedure process, and is not afforded with a right of appeal, the employee may claim that they were denied the right to natural justice by being refused, or not provided with a right of appeal to a dismissal sanction.

We can get guidance from the Glover case mentioned-above regarding what basic fundamental requirements of fair procedures are, in which it was stated:

There are certain fundamental requirements of fair procedures as outlined in Glover v BLN Ltd [1973] IR 388 which it was stated:

“cannot be dispensed with, regardless of the particular circumstances that arise in an individual disciplinary matter. They include:

(i)                  the requirement to make the employees who is the subject of the investigation aware of all the allegations against him or her at the outset of the process;

(ii)                (ii) the requirement that an employer who has published a disciplinary procedure to its employees follow those procedures scrupulously when conducting a disciplinary process;

(iii)               and (iii) in the event that an allegation against the employee is upheld, any disciplinary sanction imposed is proportionate to the complaint that has been substantiated.” 

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